“The middle class, in any society, plays the role of graphite rods in nuclear reactors: they slow down the reaction and, if it weren't for them, the reactor would explode. A society without a middle class is a society primed for explosion.”

“I'm not interested in how things were, or how we ended up where we are now. What interests me is what we are now and what we will be.”

“So let the storm rage. Let the storm rage.”

“لقد جمع بلفور اليهود فى وطن واحد وعدهم به و بهذا أراح العالم منهماعتقادى ان هناك وعداً آخر .. ثمة شخص جمع الأوغاد و الخاملين و الأفاقين و فاقدى الهمة من أرجاء الأرض فى وطن قومى واحد هو مصر .. لهذا لا تجد فى اليابان فاقد همة .. لهذا لا تجد فىى ألمانيا وغداً .. لهذا لا تجد فى الأرجنتين أفاقاً .. كلهم هنا يا صاحبى!”

“A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated...”

“The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip.”

“Hélène slowly surveyed the room. In this respectable society, amongst these apparently decent middle-class people, were there none but faithless wives? With her strict provincial morality, she was amazed at the licensed promiscuity of Parisian life.”